Just Back

[cheshiregreen]

A further reflection from me on Vale Park events yesterday.

As last season, we have no leaders on pitch in my view.

Criticism of Mayor is harsh, despite a number of hefty challenges on him, he was our best threat going forward all game.

Time for Aimson? Probably especially if he is an organiser and talker.

Sub choices after Vale goal were a little desperate - Moore at LWB Cooper at RWB made no impact and left us vulnerable to Vale's attacks .

 

[Balham Green]

Some recurring themes:

- Playing pretty football in middle third of ground
- Mayor's ego is easily punctured; opposition targets him for the wind-up
- Baxter, Cooper, Aimison haven't justified their fanfare introductions
- Still Wootton and Canavan letting us down at the back

I can see this experiment going very wrong. It's hard to be a footballing side when confidence is low. Need some back to basics defensive training, maybe shift to 4/5 at the back.

Too simplistic, playing 4 at the back wouldn't have stopped that goal yesterday or many others we've conceded this season. Defenders have got to do their basic job of defending.

He's got to stick with his philosophy and somehow eradicate the errors.

We only conceded ONE. We have scored 1 in last 3 away games -a fairly streaky free kick, despite pass pass pass trying to walk the ball in to the net. That is more of a concern for me.

 

[monkeywrench]

Some recurring themes:

- Playing pretty football in middle third of ground
- Mayor's ego is easily punctured; opposition targets him for the wind-up
- Baxter, Cooper, Aimison haven't justified their fanfare introductions
- Still Wootton and Canavan letting us down at the back

I can see this experiment going very wrong. It's hard to be a footballing side when confidence is low. Need some back to basics defensive training, maybe shift to 4/5 at the back.

Too simplistic, playing 4 at the back wouldn't have stopped that goal yesterday or many others we've conceded this season. Defenders have got to do their basic job of defending.

He's got to stick with his philosophy and somehow eradicate the errors.

We only conceded ONE. We have scored 1 in last 3 away games -a fairly streaky free kick, despite pass pass pass trying to walk the ball in to the net. That is more of a concern for me.

Gotta move the ball forward a bit quicker. We'll get there. Patience required.

 

[Vampires11]

root cause of goal was Josh Grant being asleep. There player ran out of the penalty area, straight across him, and then down the side to play in the cross. Grant reacted with speed of a horny tortoise.
The number of goals conceded isn't just the Canavan/ Wooton partnership....................the wing backs should be stopping the crosses coming in. So where the fudge was Moore when the free kick was taken? Stood watching, didn't make any attempt to get back.
So Lowe should be giving Moore and Grant Sh!t for allowing the move to develop in the first place.

Oh! HAng on, can't do that because DA didn't recruit them!!!!!!!!

 

[WoodsyGreen]

Lowe will switch to a back four over his dead body. Wingbacks are a key part of his philosophy and he's not going to veer from that and nor should he just because a few fans are becoming impatient barely five minutes into the season.

I'd be seriously concerned if he changed his approach now; it'd be a major sign of panic and weakness.

We need consistency in the line-up - injuries and suspensions have prevented him from being able to play his best XI consistently and thus the blue touchpaper hasn't yet been lit. Combine that inconsistency with a complete change of playing style and it's not hard to see why we haven't quite taken the division by storm yet.

If we're still mid-table going into the final stages of the season then it'll have been a severe disappointment, but Christ, the kids have only just gone back to school and some are asking him to rip up his playbook already. You can't win promotion in September, and nor can you lose it.

 

[Nobby]

As long as we are in touch of the top 7 come January, then that’s fine with me.

Need to be more clinical and get Aimson in the side. Never seen the bloke play but had enough of Canavan. To think, some people on here thought he’d turn out to be a better signing than Bradley :funny:.

 

[Army green]

As long as we are in touch of the top 7 come January, then that’s fine with me.

Need to be more clinical and get Aimson in the side. Never seen the bloke play but had enough of Canavan. To think, some people on here thought he’d turn out to be a better signing than Bradley :funny:.

We’ve really struggled defensively since losing Bradley.

 

[hometown5]

Lowe is still a rookie. Hope he can learn how to turn things around this time.

 

[PL2 3DQ]

We don't actually know if Aimson is any good, Bury conceded a lot of goals last season - the second highest amount in the top 10 in L2. Obviously the goals conceded were not all down to Aimson but we shouldn't put all our hopes on him.

Lowe has rebuilt the midfield and forward parts of the team, however the defence hasn't had the same amount of attention with just Aimson and Josh Grant added over the summer.
Lowe wasn't helped by having Canavan and Wootton on contracts for another year and Sawyer signing a new deal before Lowe arrived.

I suppose Lowe felt that with the right coaching the three existing centre-backs would improve but it hasn't happened yet.
Maybe Sawyer could play in the centre flanked by Aimson and Grant.

 

[Ottawa Green]

From a Bury fan who has seen Argyle play this year and comments on Aimson

Regarding Aimson unfortunately I can't give you good news. His best position is in a back 3 but I didn't rate him that much, decent in the air but lacks pace and never filled me with confidence. Overall we were generally poor at the back last season.

 

[Army green]

Yep we’re generally poor at the back too. Have been for a long time now. Even in league two we’re crap at the back. So depressing. Not sure how old wootton and caravan are but if they want their career in league football to continue beyond this season then they need to raise their game or they will be scraping around for a contract in non league. Aimson can’t be any worse.

 

[Tugboat]

Then we are wrong to play the formation that we go.

Square pegs in round holes spring to mind.

If we had a potent strike force scoring goals then we could probably relax a little at the defensive lapses but we don’t and we can’t.

I still think we need another midfielder over a second striker. A 3-1-5-1 type formation that allows Mayor to roam and bit more behind Telford.

 

[German Shepherd]

What I found really frustrating yesterday was the total lack of urgency once the 3 minutes to go board came up. You would have thought Argyle were defending a lead rather than trying to equalise.

 

[Cobi Budge]

I was at the game & truthfully, whilst it was frustrating, I don’t think our performance was as bad as people are perhaps making out. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a particularly good performance, but I’ve seen us play much worse in recent years & with the way some people are reacting, you’d think we were terrible & that we were steamrolled.

I completely disagree with the OP’s Port Vale supporting mate when he says they outplayed us, they didn’t. Bar the goal & a short spell after the goal, the game was fairly even, I’d probably even say we were the better side. We had a 20 minute spell before their goal when we were turning the screw & were very much on top, we needed to capitalise then.

We were let down by 2 things really. Firstly a lack of bravery in the final third, we had numerous shooting opportunities but we rarely actually got our shots away. There was also a moment when Mayor put a perfect ball across the face of goal that someone should be attacking but nobody did, Lowe referred to this post match. Secondly our usual bit of poor defending from a cross, it was far too easy for their player to nod the ball in.

There’s nothing wrong with the formation in itself. We have a number of players who have never played within a similar system, particularly defensively. We still have Aimson to come in also. It takes time. Lowe isn’t going to change his philosophy, and nor should he, because people are getting inpatient after 8 games of football (and we have played well in a number of them) & crying out for some dinosaur 442 formation.

The last thing I’ll say is, whilst challenging for promotion this season is important, so is building and maintaining an attractive brand of football. I wouldn’t want us to abandon that and go back to robust functional L2 football just in search of a quick promotion. This is a project.

I’ll be at Crawley on Tuesday as well, and I’m honestly already looking forward to it, hopefully we can get a good result & bounce back.

 

[JannerinCardiff]

I was at the game & truthfully, whilst it was frustrating, I don’t think our performance was as bad as people are perhaps making out. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a particularly good performance, but I’ve seen us play much worse in recent years & with the way some people are reacting, you’d think we were terrible & that we were steamrolled.

I completely disagree with the OP’s Port Vale supporting mate when he says they outplayed us, they didn’t. Bar the goal & a short spell after the goal, the game was fairly even, I’d probably even say we were the better side. We had a 20 minute spell before their goal when we were turning the screw & were very much on top, we needed to capitalise then.

We were let down by 2 things really. Firstly a lack of bravery in the final third, we had numerous shooting opportunities but we rarely actually got our shots away. There was also a moment when Mayor put a perfect ball across the face of goal that someone should be attacking but nobody did, Lowe referred to this post match. Secondly our usual bit of poor defending from a cross, it was far too easy for their player to nod the ball in.

There’s nothing wrong with the formation in itself. We have a number of players who have never played within a similar system, particularly defensively. We still have Aimson to come in also. It takes time. Lowe isn’t going to change his philosophy, and nor should he, because people are getting inpatient after 8 games of football (and we have played well in a number of them) & crying out for some dinosaur 442 formation.

The last thing I’ll say is, whilst challenging for promotion this season is important, so is building and maintaining an attractive brand of football. I wouldn’t want us to abandon that and go back to robust functional L2 football just in search of a quick promotion. This is a project.

I’ll be at Crawley on Tuesday as well, and I’m honestly already looking forward to it, hopefully we can get a good result & bounce back.

I agree Cobi.

Personally I’ve really enjoyed the football on show by Ryan Lowe’s team. But I’m under no illusions this is a work in progress and recent results haven’t been great, but to me the problems are fixable in the main.

For me there are 3 problems;

1). Teams working out that our left hand side poses more threat than our right. This is not all bad. Most teams are already trying man mark Mayor or double up on Mayor/MacFadzean - bad that are most effective attack/creative minded players have less space but very good that in doing so there is space on the right if we can get the ball over there quick enough. For me this is a positive but we’ve not played the right player in the RWB position yet. For me the best player to play RWB is Byron Moore, he’s quick so can utilise the extra space and can take on and beat a man in 1 on 1’s, and also has experience of playing RWB in Lowes system having done so with Bury last season. Riley has had plenty of space and ball in this wide right position but unfortunately he’s a RB and hasn’t been able to capitalise on this space to go into.

2). Lowes system to me at least seems to require mobile forwards. Unfortunately much as I like him I think Taylor doesn’t fit Lowes footballing philosophy. To play his style more effectively we need strikers who are constantly on the move to draw defenders out of position and get into the channels and be able to take on defender in wide areas. For me Telford and Joel Grant can do this role and to a lesser extent Rudden, but unfortunately not Taylor (I’ve not included Byron Moore as I hope he’ll play RWB). Teams have tried to press us to stop us playing out from the back, but in doing this they have to leave space between the goalkeeper and defence which we can exploit with our quicker mobile forwards- an example of this was the thru ball to Telford when he picked up his tweaked hamstring against Walsall where he used his pace to be through on goal until he pulled up injured.

3). As has been mentioned by others we need to defend crosses better. From what I’ve heard/read Aimson is decent in the air, this should help against crosses and hopefully give us more attacking threat with our own set pieces.

To me these 3 problems can be sorted and I’m sure RL is aware of them and will put plans in place to solve these weaknesses. As I’ve said tho I like what I see and I’m optimistic about the future - Last season Bury started badly but RL adapted and they finished 2nd scoring the most goals in L2.. there is a long way to go..

:thumbup: